Radical Islamism and Jihad

Syed Ata Hasnain

Syed Ata Hasnain

From there it
could operate in the future and pin its hopes on exploiting the piracy in the
region to become a source for its future income. There is considerable concern
among Southeast Asian nations about their future security given the other
problem, of Rohingyas in Myanmar, which has let flow a stream of refugees who
could also be exploited for the Daesh cause. Daesh would at some stage wish to
signal its arrival on the regional stage through a spectacular event, and that
could be a lone wolf attack in any of the major capitals....

Khaled Ahmed

Khaled Ahmed

Hafiz Saeed and
his “charity” organisations including hundreds of schools and colleges are the
prime example of “mainstreaming” of an outlawed organisation by Pakistan. Its negative
fallout was also endured, like the running of private courts under “Islamic
law”. What has been highlighted by a lame-duck PMLN government is the negative
consequence of what is called “mainstreaming”: Instead of de-radicalising the
declared terrorists the process further radicalises society and undermines the
power of the state....

Mashari Althaydi

Mashari Althaydi

All these
groups as well as others kill and destroy in the name of religion. They harm
Muslims first as well as non-Muslims. Confronting evil must be on the same pace
whether here or there. However, what’s happening here is frankly deeper and
more dangerous and complicated....

Mamdouh AlMuhaini

Mamdouh AlMuhaini

Terrorism stems
from an extremist religious ideology that incites hatred and enmity and pushes
those who embrace it to kill others because they follow a different religion,
sect or opinion. We have seen these among believers of different faiths and not
just among Muslims....

Vera Mironova

The Islamic
State isn’t currently gaining new ground, but the potential for gaining new
fighters waits in the wings. Enter the next generation of extremists: local
Sunni civilians who lost everything in the war and are already afraid for their
safety, and a new enlistment of young, smart sympathizers who can use their
expertise in engineering, science and the military to serve the goals of an
armed group....

Bill Roggio

Bill Roggio

If Pakistan is
serious about showing good faith in fighting terrorism and stabilizing South
Asia, it should start by arresting the Taliban’s leadership, and closing the training
camps, madrasas, recruiting centres, financial hubs, and other support networks
that are based within its border....

Irfan Husain

Irfan Husain

Hafiz Saeed
insists he has never been charged with any crime, even though both India and
the US accuse him of being the mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attack
that left over 160 dead. Despite a $10 million bounty on his head, Hafiz Saeed
maintains a high profile in extremist circles, and is free to carry out his
political activities. ...

Adnan Adil

Adnan Adil

The Quran does
not allow believers to take up arms and shed blood on earth as aggressors to
occupy lands or to convert people to Islam or to shed bloodshed in the
countries where Muslims enjoy freedom of practicing their faith. Jihad is aimed
at ending oppression and persecution and that too by an Islamic state, not by
individuals and deviant groups.....

Umair Jamal

Umair Jamal

Just over a
week ago, representatives of two proscribed militant organizations were not
only able to participate in a major by-election in Punjab, but they managed to
secure more than 11 percent of the constituency’s vote. One of the candidate’s
campaign posters had the pictures of Mumtaz Qadri, who assassinated the
Governor of Punjab province Salman Taseer....

Mohamed Bin Ali and NurulHuda Binte Yussof

It is only with
acute understanding of the religion that the wisdom of Islam’s various nuances
can be realised. Contextualisation ability can then be strengthened from
within, thereby making it less likely for the radicalisation process to take
root, irrespective of the ever-changing political and social climate facing the
community....

Adam Maida for Human Rights Watch

The Saudi
Ministry of Education religion curriculum also employs anti-Shia rhetoric. The
religion curriculum for the 2016-17 school year does not mention Saudi Shia by
name, but instead uses veiled language to stigmatize Shia religious practices
as shirk, or polytheism or ghulah, “exaggeration.” Saudi religious education
textbooks direct these critiques in particular to the Shia practice of visiting
graves and religious shrines to venerate important religious figures and
members of the family of the prophet, as well as tawassul...,

Thomas Joscelyn

Thomas Joscelyn

The circular
was so problematic that some of the organization’s top ideologues objected to
it, arguing that the delegated committee, one of the most powerful bodies
within the Islamic State, had eliminated the little leeway Abu Bakr al
Baghdadi’s men had previously afforded Muslims. Some of the Islamic State’s own
leaders and members could be excommunicated under the terms set forth in the
ruling and this likely exacerbated an internal power struggle, as some used it
as a tool for marginalizing their rivals. [See Islamic State Rescinds One Of Its Most Problematic
Religious Rulings.]...

Ellis Cashmore

Ellis Cashmore

For many, the
default culprit is the internet, alive with Ulema (Muslim scholars who are
believed to have a specialist knowledge of Islamic sacred law) earnestly
advocating death to infidels in the struggle against all enemies of Islam. The
enemies are, they say, anyone who is not a Muslim. Their preaching is
apparently reinforced locally by other men of god, comparably bellicose and
equally opposed to the Kuffar, or unbelievers....

Bertil Lintner

A US plan to
restart its International Military Education and Training program for Myanmar
officers, suspended after the country’s military crushed a pro-democracy
uprising in 1988 may now be halted by the Congress. The reputation of Myanmar’s
pro-democracy icon and, until recent events a darling of the West, Aung San Suu
Kyi, is in tatters for her failure to condemn the army’s so-called “clearing
operations” in Rakhine State. Some commentators even suggest that she should be
held responsible for what the UN has termed ethnic cleansing and stripped of
her 1992 Nobel Peace Prize.....

Farooq Yousaf

Fighting
thoughts is a bigger challenge than fighting actions. Filtering and
surveillance of social media activity can though be a good measure, it still
presents limitations. It can sometimes take a short video or a propaganda
documentary, a ‘western invasion on Muslim countries’ video on YouTube, or a
completely rational talk criticising western interventions, to radicalise
someone. Therefore, any policy should made should be enforced beyond the
stereotyped notion of the ‘threat only coming from devout Muslims’....

Raoof Hasan

Raoof Hasan

It is the
former Lashkar-e-Taiba turned Jama’atud Dawa (JuD) that now wears the hat of a
political party — MML. Members of LYRA are the proponents of the cause of
murderer Qadri who was handed down the capital punishment and whose mausoleum
in the outskirts of Islamabad attracts a growing number of devotees with the
state languishing around as silent spectator....

Dr. Mehmood Ahmad Ghazi

According to
the teachings of the Noble Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
(peace be upon him), the international relations is peace, War as an essential
element is an exceptional situation. The author has analyzed in detail that
terror has no place in the varying aspects of Jihad, and the Deen of Islam is
the Deen of peace. Many people in the Muslim world have been affected by the behaviour
and thoughts of the Orientalists. They have taught that Islam’s objective is to
perpetuate world war. This concept is wrong. Islam is the first message that
has made the use of power a fruitful outcome and effectively bound to an
ethical code....

Thomas Joscelyn

Thomas Joscelyn

The Islamic
State has revoked one of its most problematic and extreme religious rulings.
The one-page repeal was disseminated on social media sites associated with the
so-called caliphate on Sept. 15. It was issued after months of controversy
surrounding the group’s approach to declaring Takfir on other Muslims, a key
ideological issue. On May 17, the Islamic State’s delegated committee, which
answers to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, issued a finding titled, “That Those Who
Perish Would Perish Upon Proof and Those Who Live Would Live Upon Proof.” The
ruling quickly proved to be contentious because of its broad approach to
Takfir...

Ahmed Fouad

Ahmed Fouad

Although
Al-Azhar’s centre is playing a key role in fighting extremist electronic
platforms, luring in those lost between moderation and extremism and improving
the image of Islam, we cannot ignore the presence of a similar platform for Dar
al-Ifta, which undermines Al-Azhar’s. Dar al-Ifta’s efforts in this regard have
been internationally recognized, and the European Parliament adopted them as a
point of reference for Islamic Fatwas in 2015....

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini

If we fall
victim to this sort of thinking, we become that which we abhor and fear Instead
our collective task as a nation is to find our own deep well of decency and
humanity, to be fair and compassionate, just and kind, and perhaps above all to
care: about the victims, the perpetrators, and those who are both victim and
perpetrator....

S. Binodkumar Singh

S. Binodkumar Singh

We've been able
to successfully destroy the operational capacity of the militants. The
militants' operational capacity increased last year, but they don't have that
capacity any more. We've destroyed it by carrying out anti-militancy drives
across the country. The militants have no capacity to launch any more big
attack right now....

Ben Judah

Ben Judah

The worst
attacks are generally planned, coordinated, military-inspired operations by
terrorist organizations that claim to represent Islam. These, and not something
about London, are what inspire the copycats. The spike in attacks in recent
years is a direct result of the Islamic State’s establishment of a military
force in Syria and Iraq that has, by some estimates, been comparable in size to
the British Army...

Claire Meadows

Claire Meadows

It’s impossible
to determine in advance who will respond to Isis’s propaganda but there does
seem to be a bias towards young, vulnerable Muslims. This was recognised by
former PM David Cameron in 2015, when at a speech in Birmingham he said that
young Muslims are drawn to fundamentalist Islam in the same way that young
Germans were attracted to fascism last century....

Dr S Zulfiqar Gilani

Dr S Zulfiqar Gilani

Like all of us,
extremists are also social beings and the sustenance of their extremist psyche
is linked with the social group/s to which they belong. As groups tend to
arrive at more extreme positions than any individual members would on their
own, the individual extremist’s position becomes stronger and more extreme due
to membership of an extremist group or groups. Groups also tend to become less
similar to other groups, which leads to dehumanising members of other groups
leading to an us-and-them mentality...

Farhad Manjoo

Farhad Manjoo

The term has
often been used to describe a specific kind of radicalization — that of young
Muslim men who are inspired to take violent action by the online messages of
Islamist groups like the Islamic State. But as it turns out, it isn’t just
violent jihadists who benefit from the internet’s power to radicalize young
people from afar. White supremacists are just as adept at it....